July 2017 Newsletter, Volume 115

I. The Election is Coming

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is almost here! The Board of Directors Election will take place August 11-14. By now, all members should have received voting instructions by email. If you are a paid member and didn’t receive an email with instructions, please contact the Elections Committee.

Elections has spent the past month preparing for the election and providing the public with plenty of information about our six candidates’ platforms and goals. Elections worked closely with Communications to advertise three candidate chats on July 26, 29, and 30 and the publication of candidates’ Q&A responses on five topics, including OTW Changes, Volunteer Management, Volunteer Positions, Personal Interview, and Communication and Outreach. Check out those answers, and be sure to stay tuned to the OTW Elections site, AO3, Twitter, and Tumblr for more Elections news!

II. At the AO3

After two long months of testing, Accessibility, Design and Technology deployed Rails 4.2 on July 17 and tested and released bug fixes and enhancements to complete the the Rails 4.2 update.

Abuse received and responded to over 530 tickets in July. As a reminder, submitting multiple reports for the same issue only makes the process slower, so please be sure that staff are working hard to resolve them.

III. Legal Advocacy Work

Legal had a fun and busy July, including a visit to San Diego Comic Con! Legal Chair Betsy and Legal Staffer Heidi participated in panels about law and fandom, and hosted a well-attended “Meetup of Our Own” with friends and allies celebrating 10 years of the OTW! The panels and meetup all went very well, and it was a joy to meet so many wonderful fans from all over. Also, Legal Chair Betsy discussed the OTW, law, and fandom on the latest installment of the Copy This Podcast, entitled “Cosplay, Copyright, and Comic-Con.”

IV. Governance

Strategic Planning had excellent results in reaching the OTW 2017-2020 Strategic Plan 6-month goals for creating board purview and roles documentation, improving Board-committee communication, documenting OTW-wide chair/lead position and expectations, and developing preliminary purview statements! They are happy to report this level of success at this first milestone due to the hard work of all OTW personnel and are excited to work toward their 9-month goal of documenting team-specific chair/lead position descriptions.

V. It’s All About the Peeps

As of the 27 July 2017, the OTW has 658 volunteers. Recent personnel movements are listed below.

The Organization for Transformative Works has not received any National Security Letters or FISA court orders, and we have not been subject to any gag order by a FISA court.
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